A conference system can play a beep or provide some other sort of indication when a new person has joined the call. One example of other indications used to indicate that a new person has joined the call is that a recording of the person's name is announced to all other participants. Although the beep or other indication allows the other participants to know when a new person is joining the call it often interrupts the other participants already engaged in the call. One problem with current systems is that the person is allowed to join the call at any time. This means that the beep or other indication is provided to all other participants without any concern for what is actually occurring in the conference call. This may result in the speaker's voice being cut out, the speaker stopping in mid-sentence, or the meeting leader interrupting the speaker to ask, “who joined?” These beeps are similar to someone rudely interrupting a group of people talking in person, without waiting for a break in the conversation.
The problem is exacerbated in large conferences when several people join a call at around, but not exactly at, the same time. In such large meetings, the continual beeping to announce new participants can become very distracting.
Some conferencing systems allow the beep or indication to be completely disabled. This is advantageous in that the other participants are not interrupted during the conference. However, the beep or indication does serve the purpose of letting the participants know that someone has joined the conference. Without the beep or other indication, someone could easily join the conference and eavesdrop.
It would therefore be advantageous to provide a conferencing system that facilitates the polite introduction of participants to the conference.